Late in the day of September 18, 1918, the Germans counterattacked on a wide front west of Cambrai between Gouzeaucourt and the Arras-Cambrai road. Starting off with a bombardment of great intensity they launched an infantry attack northward from Trescault, but were repulsed at all points with heavy losses. North of Moeuvres, the Sixth German Division, under cover of a heavy barrage, and while forty German batteries were at work, made a determined attack on the British positions. Though their lines were torn and formations shattered by the British field batteries and the steady machine-gun and rifle fire, they still pressed forward, climbing over the bodies of their dead. At a tragic cost of life a few of the advanced British positions were penetrated, but before the end of the day after a stubborn struggle they were expelled and the British reoccupied the positions. The fighting here had been costly for the British as well as for the foe. The Germans displayed complete disregard for life and demonstrated a spirit of initiative that was quite unusual. German machine gunners established themselves in some derelict British tanks which they transformed into forts, sweeping the area around with machine-gun bullets that wrought considerable destruction. Groups of German machine gunners in other parts of the field, and aided by some infantry, established themselves in wrecked villages, in woods, and earth-works, and in old trench systems, where the British line of advance passed just beyond them. Other British troops following the first waves suffered considerably from the attacks of these independent fighters. It was necessary to mop up each isolated post before the advance could be continued. The French meanwhile had been pushing their lines closer to St. Quentin from the south and the southwest. During the night of September 18-19, 1918, they fought their way into Contescourt, which lies four miles to the southwest of St. Quentin, and in the morning occupied Castres, about half a mile to the northeast. Farther east and south they advanced to the outskirts of Benay, a town six miles south of the city. The strongly fortified village of Moeuvres, seven miles west of Cambrai, which had been the scene of intense fighting for some days, was captured by the British in the morning of September 20, 1918. The Germans fought stubbornly to hold the village, which with its covering positions consisted of a solid mass of trenches and dugouts covering a square mile of ground. It was the junction of the main and support Hindenburg line and the most formidable obstacle that the British encountered anywhere in that defensive system.